Nada A Rasheed

The State fit to represent the interests of society, seeking to harmonize interests and give a global response to the different conflicts.

The performance of the State connects, in this area, above all, the Fundamental objective of Social peace.



A strong state is based on a strong society, and only a strong society produces a strong state. There is a complex network of relations between the two. The state system adopts public policies aimed at satisfying citizens, changing the structure of political opportunities for a group, that is to say, these policies are biased towards a particular class or class to compensate for their past failures.

The state should care for its people so it should be our state. Not State for few rich people who embezzle the economy.

I can distinguish between two types of relationship in modern and semi-modern societies:

Modernist societies: The relationship between the citizen and the state is specific and stable on a rational, egalitarian reference, rights and duties known to all. as Professor Artur said. The problem of this pattern, which can affect the relationship, is corruption, and the monopoly of political and economic power. Here the citizen loses a lot of his rights, and society loses much of his energy.

Semi-modernist societies: Our problem is in Africa and the Middle East. That the state is based on a modern constitution, but it does not apply, and the state ignores this rational relationship, in favor of traditional backward relations. In this situation, ethnic relations become more important than the relations of citizenship, because of the coexistence of traditional norms with modernist norms. Here the citizen is subjected to social, political, economic and cultural injustice. Not only that, semi-modern societies are suffered from corruption and monopoly of political and economic power.

The relationship in semi-modern societies under the pressure of three forces: ethnicity, corruption, monopoly.

Thank you so much Professor Artur for this question

Ahmed Mousa Badawi

Dear Professor

If you read my preprint you will notice that most of the subject is from your speciality - Sociology - -

However I feel fascinated by Sociology and Anthropology because these research areas carry most of the responses about human behaviour.

I had just a single annual subject on sociology but I enjoy reading and I dared to write this summary.

Thanks for your comment as an excellent expert.

The question leads to the center of the state theories of modernity. This is a rather complex field and the answers to be given today, from the state theories of Bodin, Althusius, Macchiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, etc. to John Rawls, open up another field of discussion, given the historical experiences. The question today is how strong and how capable people are of learning in those areas where the state is determined by exploitation of the weak, corruption, or dictatorial violence. The ideal of modernity is liberal democracy who respects human rights. However, there are also sensitive balances between contradictory principles and corruption must be actively combated. The basic contradiction of the modern state consists of the contrast between the liberal principle (individual freedom that respects differences) and the democratic principle (equality for all, which does not accept social differences in the sense of "classes"). The democratic society is in development always, is changeable (sometimes also in a dangerous direction) and modern democracy also defines governments as being for a limited time. Bad governments should not have a chance to exist longer than 4-5 years, until the next elections. At the same time the citizens are obliged for example through taxes (and not to cheat!) to make their contribution to the common good. Democracy is the best of all forms of state for all citizens, but it is also the most endangered form of state at the same time, through abuse of power by individual groups. Without the citizens' belief in democracy in times of crisis and without the efforts of broad majority of the population to preserve it and protect it against extreme parties and forms of government, democracy will always be only a name without fulfilling the ethical norms of democracy.

Hein Retter

Artur Victoria Robert Boroch

I agree with you, Dr. Boroch

what I have explained in particular, the semi-modern societies, in Africa and Middle East, which I know and live in.

We have a coexistence between traditional rules and institutional rules governing the relationship between the individual and the state, and I do not say here the relationship between citizen and state. Traditional rules as between tribe and state, religious denominations and state, race and state. All these ethnic relations, still active or liquid, exert power within state institutions and thus weaken institutional rules, affecting the relationship between the individual and the state. The concept of citizenship is fundamentally distorted.

As for the situation in Eastern Europe, it needs another explanation. I do not have enough details and information to explain, but the historical analysis of the conditions of these societies in the Cold War era, then the process of democratic transition and the status quo, can provide a better explanation.

It seems to me there has been substantial changes in the relationship between citizen and state: some decades ago the state''s role was to make certain there was sufficient work for everyone, but they broke down as work changed; then it was about opportunity to make money: freedoms were always subject to change, from moral freedoms, or freedom from, to freedom of choice. Freedom of expression has given way to tyranny of boundaries. Citizenship might be see negatively/as the right not to starve. In the UK right to health care is part of being a citizen.

How a citizen explicates their role is thereby constantly reconfigured.

Originally the modern constitution was aimed at securing the autonomy of society by denying the intervention of political power into the society.

For this reason, the role of the state was to be limited to a passive one that regulates and eliminates acts that disrupt autonomous civil society's order.

However, something called "social power" appears in the course of history.

A typical one is a large company.

Yuji, does the state only assume a passive role? The state operates through a number of institutions and ways and usually via certain ideologies, some of which are being discussed here. The notion of civil society, based largely on Locke, is surely another ideology?

The relationship between state and citizens should be an equal relationship in which both sides are accountable to each other or the state accountable to the citizenry. In Africa, however, the citizens are accountable to the state and it is such a sad state of affairs

The rule of the relationship between the state and the people is the constitution and the system of government and the government's honesty with its people and their concern for their interests and security. In contrast, the security of all the above factors is through the awareness of the people and the spirit of citizenship

A community that serves the welfare of all citizens in the best possible way needs both: committed citizens who fill the state with life and institutions that the state develops in order to be able to do justice to its tasks in the longer term. There may be an authoritarian or liberal relationship between the State and its citizens. The European monarchies of modern times were basically institutionally anchored states. They regulated the position of the monarch and his successors, the monetary system (taxes!), the case of war, an assembly of the estates (later the parliament) at certain times, legislation, state security and the judiciary. The USA was self-sufficient theocracies in its origins in the 17th and 18th centuries until the declaration of independence, but until the break with the mother colony, which was administered by a governor of the British Crown. The origin of the communities was the "Town meetings", in which all relevant things were discussed. Here there was much less hierarchy - also in the church area much less. If one now considers committed citizenship as the one pole of the community, the state-communal institutions as the other pole, then the European state would be much more close to the institutional pole, the USA much more close to the personal pole of the committed citizens of a community. Each of the two positions has its traditions, advantages and disadvantages.